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Glenn, John Herschel, Jr.

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Glenn, John Herschel, Jr., 1921–2016, American astronaut and politician, b. Cambridge, Ohio. On Feb. 20, 1962, he became the first American and the third person to orbit the earth, circling the globe three times in Friendship 7, a space capsule launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla. After leaving the space program, Glenn entered Ohio politics and was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat in 1974. Known for his work on military issues, he campaigned unsuccessfully for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1984. In Oct., 1998, Glenn went into orbit again, on a space shuttle mission, to test effects of space on the elderly. In 1999 he retired from the Senate.